One Concern: Applying Artificial Intelligence to Emergency Management

Ahmad Wani remembers Oct. 8, 2005. It was the day when at 8:50 a.m. Pakistan Standard Time, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck his home in Kashmir killing more than 70,000 people and displacing another 4 million. He recalls the devastation clearly, the homes left in shambles, the shortages of food and water, the many lives torn asunder in the course of seconds. “Having been one of the lucky few who lived through the disaster, I could see rescue authorities going around trying their best to rescue people,” Wani said. “However, the scale of the disaster was so large that they couldn’t identify who needed to be rescued first, and what the priorities for rescue were.” First responders were burdened by a lack of proper tools to coordinate efforts and clear…